Tesla semi

[daugen]

I think this is key... there will be a critical mass

Where and when will that happen I wonder? Limited access California highways? Inner city busses?
This is genuine artificial intelligence on the road, and as someone who has been reading scifi for over fifty years, it's fun to see these visionary
ideas come true. But no matter what, unless you get on a train or something similar, you still have to pay attention to your driving.
That Tesla guy who got killed going under the truck sure wasn't paying attention.
I'm afraid it will be a long time before I feel comfortable letting the car do all the thinking. Right now I think that's called public transportation.

I think short haul busses would make the most sense. Known route, known consumption, should be able to get good cost per mile numbers.
Long haul trucks without a dedicated truck supercharger system is probably a nonstarter unless this is heavily controlled terminal to terminal plug in overnight trucking.

 

[4570Man]

Why would you want a short haul electric truck? There's a bakery locally that has a fleet of short haul trucks. Fuel costs for those is pretty marginal in their trucking operation and pennies compared to their overall budget.

 

[crazyal]

120kW is assuming that you're charging in series, there's no reason they couldn't do it in parallel. Most supercharger sites are 10 spots x 60kW each(they share a pair and will send 120kW if the other pair is unused).

600kW could still charge a 500kW pack in ~45 minutes. There's other benefits to doing it in parallel as they could run a higher pack voltage which helps with loss due to resistance/heating(V=IR and all that). My guess is they aren't going to use this for long-haul trucking in the short term but for scheduled point to point routes.

It's possible but now you are running into a power problem. If you are only worried about charging one truck at a time that would be ok but what happens when trying to charge 10 or more? 120kW super charger at 480v is 250 amps of current. To do what you are talking about would need 1000 amps per truck. Charging stations would need to be located at substations to handle that kind of power to keep the electrical loss to a minimum. Increasing the voltage isn't going to change the demand on the electrical grid needed to support it but it will bring new issues to deal with. It can be done but it will require plenty of changes to make it work.

Maybe the primary battery pack is in the trailer so it can be charged at the terminal overnight while loading?

Seems to me Musk must have included the parameters you describe in his calculations, and concluded it was workable.

Else why would he proceed as far as he has with his semi project? This guy is underbidding the traditional aerospace contractors for rockets, he's no dummy. I think he genuinely sees an opportunity here in trucking as well.

A lot of trailers are owned by different companies than the truck. Often they go hundreds or even millions of miles in their useful life. A 600kWh battery pack would cost (rough guess) $50k. That's a lot of money. When it's time to replace it the drivers are going to want it changed early (since less capacity means shorter driving times between charges) while trailer owners are going to be more likely to wait as long as possible to get their money out of the investment. If Tesla owned all the battery packs and did the charging and used a swap station it could work but the investment would be huge. 20,000 battery packs at $50k each would be a billion dollars. Then there's the cost of the charging and swap stations. Doable, of course, but it will be difficult for Tesla given their strained financial situation.

This showed up several months ago. Two of them were given to a local bus company for city routes. My wife was lucky enough to get to ride on one of them. She said it was very quiet when it pulled up but kind of noisy inside. Part of her route is on the interstate at 65, the buss struggled to even come close. When they came to a reasonable short hill it had to climb people on the bus were joking about getting a discount if they had to get out and help push it up the hill. When pushing the motor that hard she said it was very noisy. As far as I know they were parked and haven't been used since. These buses cost about not quite twice the cost of a diesel bus. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for advancements. In this case though the buses were to be charged by burning wood chips (which is destroying the forests around here) and I question just how much better it is for the environment.

 

[daugen]

Why would you want a short haul electric truck? There's a bakery locally that has a fleet of short haul trucks. Fuel costs for those is pretty marginal in their trucking operation and pennies compared to their overall budget.

Only because it would allow overnight charging within a planned test territory, without a requirement of a national charging infrastructure.
Just trying to figure out what would work first.

 

[/pine]

End of the road: will automation put an end to the American trucker?

End of the road: will automation put an end to the American trucker? | Technology | The Guardian

 

[vvanders]

It's possible but now you are running into a power problem. If you are only worried about charging one truck at a time that would be ok but what happens when trying to charge 10 or more? 120kW super charger at 480v is 250 amps of current. To do what you are talking about would need 1000 amps per truck. Charging stations would need to be located at substations to handle that kind of power to keep the electrical loss to a minimum. Increasing the voltage isn't going to change the demand on the electrical grid needed to support it but it will bring new issues to deal with. It can be done but it will require plenty of changes to make it work.

[snip]

I dunno, they just added another 10 bays at Centralia without any major changes(was chatting with the construction crew on my way through). That's ~20 bays x 60kW each. Agreed that there's probably some changes but I don't think it's going to be as significant as people think. Each supercharger is basically 2 standard house services(450v x 133A) so you can probably plan for it similar to how housing subdivisions are done.

One thing to keep in mind is operating costs for EVs are way below similar diesel/petrol engines. We pay $0.07/kWh here(and that's just residential, not wholesale) so a full "tank" for me is ~$6 for 300mi.

 

[houstonscott]

End of the road: will automation put an end to the American trucker? End of the road: will automation put an end to the American trucker? | Technology | The Guardian

First one hacked and kills a family all the driverless crap will be outlawed.

 

[vvanders]

I very much understand the reason for developing alternative energy and I support such efforts. If a person wants to purchase and operate an alternative fuel vehicle I think it is great. I would much rather my tax dollars did not support the companies though. Dont get me wrong, I dont think the government should be supporting any business.

With that said, the thing I despise is any type of false narrative. Calling a vehicle ZEV (Zero Emissions Vehicle), to me, is a false narrative. Sure, there may be zero emissions from the vehicle, however, the energy put into the vehicle and the devices to store that energy have emissions and an environmental impact.

If the vehicle is charged from the grid, that energy has emissions.

If the vehicle is charged by wind, solar, or hydro plant, then the environmental impact comes from the raw materials to make those products.

Raw materials must be collected, then processed into products we can use. Those activities produce emissions and in the case of batteries, changes to the landscape, the earth itself, and other forms of pollution.

Then there is the disposal once the vehicle has worn out parts, is crashed, or just used up its life. Batteries are a hazardous waste (all batteries not just EV batteries) that must be disposed of or rebuilt.

I would be much happier if we could get some real data in reference to total environmental impact comparing EV, Hybrid, and ICE vehicles.

Again, I understand the need and I am not opposed to the development of EV and Hybrid vehicles. I just feel like most who own those types of vehicles look down on those of us who dont because they THINK they have no impact on the environment. People think that way because of the false narrative.

Personally I think my environmental impact is less then any EV or Hybrid. For daily use I drive a 2001 Hyundai Accent that gets 35 mpg, and only use my 2006 truck if I need to haul something or I'm going to hunt camp.

By not buying a new vehicle every few years, and driving a fuel efficient vehicle for 90% of my needs, I feel my total impact is very low.

I feel an independent (if that would even be possible with all the corruption) origination should come up with a scale to estimate each vehicles total environment impact from raw materials to end of use including what can be recycled and what is hazardous waste. Then consumers could make an informed decision and actually understand what impact their decisions make.

But I'm not a fool! Like most things, the general public will never know these facts. Only what we are told to believe.

I agreed, I've never really liked the ZEV name, I've always called them BEV(Battery Electric Vehicle).

I think the lowest impact anyone can do is to keep their car around for as long as possible. Heck, I was driving a $500 car('03 Saturn Ion w/ 145k miles, original clutch!) before the Tesla and probably would have kept it another 5-10 years if I could. I'd never own anything in the same class as the Tesla, however we do think where Tesla(and EVs in general) is where the future is so we saw the purchase as an investment in the future of the company. Musk's approach to funding the mass market cars has been to use higher priced vehicles build the next thing(just like SpaceX).

The good news about Li-Ion is it's actually not that hazardous from a chemical perspective, it just tends to catch on fire if crushed so they don't like you to throw them away. The batteries themselves are recyclable and they're already using "worn" Tesla batteries as stationary power storage before finally breaking down the packs for material recycling.

Environmental issues aside I still believe that EVs will pave the future, if only for cost reasons. The operating costs for an EVs are pretty darn cheap. For instance where I'm at my costs break down with:

$0.07/kWh @ 325W/mi = $0.023/mi
35kmi per set of tires($1k) = $0.028/mi

Similar ICE would run:
35mpg @ $3.00 = $0.086/mi
Oil change 3k @ $40 = $0.013/mi
Tires(let's call this the same for comparison sake since they can vary widely) = $0.028/mi

$0.051/mi vs $0.127/mi

Also this is on a vehicle that has 500hp+ and weighs 5k lbs. You won't find a car that makes that kind of power, gets 35mpg and runs on regular so the gap widens. If you start comparing to a S-Class for instance the number gets closer to $0.200/mi.

As battery prices fall(which they will since they're a tech and not a resource) you'll see it start making more economic sense to run an EV for the cases where it fits than a traditional car.

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

First one hacked and kills a family all the driverless crap will be outlawed.

I'm sure people said the same thing about automobiles, but they replaced the horse anyway.

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

Nuclear power will solve the electrical generation issue

It could. It should.

I see no sign of that happening. When was the last time we built a nuke plant? And how long did the permitting process take for that one?